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paid for the photographs instead.
    Another of Ola’s favourites was one that my father had taken when I was three. Ola had asked my mother for the photo during one of her visits.
    ‘I love the way you look in it,’ she had said. ‘Like a miniature Albert Einstein. Anybody seeing this photograph can tell that you were destined to be a nerd.’
    Ola was funny sometimes.
    Her third favourite was the one of me holding my rolled up university certificate, wearing my convocation gown and grinning as if I were about to conquer the world. All three photographs were displayed in pretty frames on top of the wooden cupboard beside her bed.
    We handed our fares to the driver, who then waited for the little boy to finish unwrapping the diminutive notes and coins which the blind man had extracted from somewhere within the inner regions of his trousers. The boy counted aloud.
    ‘Five naira . . . ten naira . . . ten naira fifty kobo . . . eleven naira . . . sixteen naira . . . twenty naira . . . twenty naira fifty kobo . . .’
    More than a minute later, he was still several kilometres away from the expected amount. The chomping woman lost her patience.
    ‘Take this and add to it,’ she said, handing the driver some of her own money to complete their fare.
    ‘Thank you,’ the boy said.
    ‘God bless you,’ the beggar added. ‘Your husband and children are blessed.’
    ‘Amen,’ the woman replied.
    ‘You people will never lack anything.’
    ‘Amen,’ the woman replied.
    ‘You will never find yourself in this same condition I find myself.’
    ‘Amen.’ This time, it was louder.
    ‘All the enemies who come against you and your children will come in one way and scatter in seven different directions.’
    ‘Amen!’ several passengers chanted in an attempt to usurp this most essential blessing for these perilous times.
    I wondered why the beggar’s magic words had not yet worked for the beggar himself.
    Whenever she knew that I was coming, Ola would dress up and wait on one of the concrete benches in front of her hostel. As soon as she sighted me, she would run to give me a bear hug. If I had surprised her by my visit, as I would today, her face would light up in delight. Then she would yelp and leap and almost overthrow my lean frame with her embrace. Then she would place her face against my cheeks and hold onto me for several seconds. At that moment, I could turn back and go home fully satisfied. The whole trip would have been worth it.
    An hour and a half later, the vehicle arrived at the motor park in Owerri. I stopped a little girl who was carrying a tray of imported red apples on her head and bought five of the fattest. Then, I boarded a shuttle bus straight to the university gates and joined the long queue waiting for okada. These commercial motorbikes were the most convenient way to get around, flying at suicidal speed on roads where buses and cars feared to tread, depositing passengers at their very doorsteps. The okada driver that rode me to Ola’s hostel had certainly not been engaged in any form of personal hygiene recently. I held my breath and bore the ride stoically.
    Inside Ola’s hostel, I knocked four times, rapidly, like a rent collector. Three female voices chirped in unison.
    ‘Come in.’
    Ola was sitting with some girls in her corner of the room. The girls greeted me, got up, and left. I stood at the door for a while before going to sit beside Ola on the bed. She did not get up. Where were my yelps and my hugs? With bottomless anxiety, I placed the back of my hand on her forehead. Her temperature felt normal.
    ‘Sweetheart, are you OK?’
    She wriggled away from my touch.
    ‘I’m fine,’ she replied stiffly.
    Something must be wrong.
    ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You look a bit dull.’
    ‘Kingsley, I said I’m fine.’
    I hesitated. Her eyes were blank beneath long, pretty lashes that fluttered like butterfly wings. Her rich cleavage was visible from the top of her camisole, and her bare